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'The Squirrels' misses the mark

La Jolla Playhouse has long established itself as the spring board for new works. After a successful run at LJP many shows land on Broadway.

Just when I was beginning to feel like a fraud, since many of this season's plays have received high ratings, with several all the way to 10...I saw "The Squirrels", written by Robert Askins.

A graduate of Baylor University in Waco, the one-time bartender, in a prior interview answered that he was accustomed to not feeling like he belonged in the room where he was – that too often, he felt like an outsider. As it happens, I felt the same way on Saturday watching "The Squirrels". Why was I here?

If this show is supposed to be a metaphor for life, disguising it in a tree full of red fox squirrels and grey squirrels, I missed it. As an actor it must feel like being in a Lee Strasburg acting class about "being the squirrel".

An enterprising effort by the actors, the director and the scenic designer, for me, it fell short of the mark as a political statement portraying "a scary moment in our history". As a bit of quirky theatre, it did not resonate with me. Rated 5 out of 10. Next up at the La Jolla Playhouse is the West Coast premiere "queens" running through July 29. Authored by Pulitzer Prize winner, Martyna Majok, the all-female cast is set in 2017, in a tenement basement borough of Queens, New York. Box office (858) 550-1010 or LaJollaPlayhouse.org.

The writer can be reached at [email protected]

 

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